So. I've been thinking.

Way back when, when the Star League was first getting established, its leaders had to find something to do with all of their member states' militaries. So, they got into border wars.

Most notably, they got in a border war with Jurai. Now, this was stupid from both sides, so eventually they decided to just settle things and end the bloodletting. Since the League had actually taken some territory, they ended up offering most of the reparations.

Among them, a dynastic marriage between the then heir to the Imperial throne, Azusa, and the closest eligible female relation of the First Lord at the time, one Funaho Cameron.

Fast forward a while (by Juraiian standards). Stefan Amaris pulls his infamous coup, then promptly gets his ass kicked by loyalist elements of the League military. Unfortunately, before he goes down, he manages to wipe out the Camerons root, stock, and branch, and the five Great Houses promptly rip half their civilization apart trying to settle who gets to replace them.

Not wanting -any- part of -that- mess, Kerensky and the League Army simply exit, stage left, bound for the screaming hinterlands.

Well, that's where they were going in canon. In -our- version, Amaris missed a Cameron.

Which, y'know, was understandable, seeing as she was a quarter of the way across the galaxy from him and living on what's widely accepted as one of, if not -the-, most secure worlds in the Spiral.

So, seems to me that this gives K. and company someplace to go.

Now, fast forward again to Land of Confusion. The Accultanni have just dropped approximately half a bazillion Jesus-Christ-that's-huge battleships on the Empire Jurai's richest and most populus duchy, and things are Not Going Well. Even assuming that the Empire can somehow hold the line, things are showing every sign of settling in for a long, miserable war.

Follow my logic - Funaho has an urgent, pressing need for space assets and the industrial and economic sector to support them. The Juraiian subject worlds can certainly gear up to produce such, in time, and since their asses are also on the line, they'll undoubtedly be willing to do so.

So, that's the long term of the war handled. The surviving treeships, combined with stopgaps like Washu's cabbits, can -maybe- hold the line in the short term.

That leaves medium. Now, the Inner Sphere has heavy industry, and is in the middle of a major economic boom that massive military spending - especially when it's coming out of Jurai's coffers and not the local taxbase - would only accellerate.

What it doesn't have is the neccessary technology - but that's why this is the medium-term solution. The big problem is finding a big enough clue-by-four to get the Successor States pointed in the same direction.

Well, Kerensky's heirs are still around, and they're quite happy to take her orders...

And if she can end these damned stupid fratricidal wars and rebuild her nation in the bargain, that's just a bonus, right?

Blessed be.
-n

Hmm.

Okay, the original plans were for SW4 to take place in Act II, although I think this has been twisted around a little. May I suggest the following:

When Kerensky left the Inner Sphere he entered Jurai space and Funaho was able to arrange for he and his followers to settle on five worlds the Jurai had been looking on as colonisation prospects. The events leading up to the formation of the clans took place as before and subsequent coloniation took place outside Jurai space. Since this essentially expanded Jurai's broders without any border wars or the like, Azusa was perfectly happy to let them do this and for the CLans to skirmish between themselves because they only did this on planets, not with spaceships.

Funaho, in her role as chief of intelligence for Azusa arranged for a group of clan warriors to return to the Inner Sphere to keep an eye of the Cameron Sector on behalf of Jurai: Wolf's Dragoons. Act I's actions in that sector are the Fourth Succession War. By this point the Guild and Asuza are both extremely concerned at the possibility of the Federated Commonwealth reuniting the Star League. Funaho arranges for technology from other Jurai vassals to be given to the Clans, alllowing them to build a new generation of BattleMechs i.e. reach clan technology levels around 3050 in canon. The Clans begin to split into Crusader-Warden factions.

Act II: Funaho unleashes the Clans (who at this point consider her to be about one step short of God) upon the Inner Sphere in the hope of:
a) preventing the FedCom from taking advantage of Jurai's distraction and repeating the last Reunification War.
b) Grabbing a reasonably intact economic base that can be upgraded to build and crew warships for Jurai in a couple of years and can fill the gaps emerging in Jurai's economy as it focuses on war material right now.]
c) Annexing the whole mess once things calm down again. Given the devestation of the Succession Wars this is to all practical purposes humanitarian - SW4 killed and wounded over 700 million people and the destruction of property was estimated at 80 _trillion_ Guild credits.

drakensis

"I believe that forgiving the enemy is God's function. Ours is simply to arrange the meeting." - General H Norman Schwarzkopf

> Okay, the original plans were for SW4 to take place in
> Act II, although I think this has been twisted around a
> little. May I suggest the following:

I was suggesting that we alter that, yeah, and we seem to be on pretty much the same page the whole way. (tho' I'll admit that I hadn't thought of Funaho that way, it does make sense that she wouldn't be any too fond at all of the Successor States.)

A couple things:

First, if the clans are Juraiian clients and/or subjects (which their position w/regards to Funaho would make them, I think) then they've had access to tech equivalent to the other subject worlds -at least-.

Including the genotech. Which is the absolute best to be found in a galaxy where 'most everyone can beat what the canon Clans had. Given how closely genetic engineering and eugenics were tied to the basics of Clan society, that can't help but have an impact - even if they were just trying to define what they were after rather than reach it.

Second, the Manticoran-Havenite cold war has already been established as having motivated those two powers to gear up their relations with the Successor States towards an American-Soviet style proxy battle (with the Fedcom and Dracs&League, respectively). -That- means that the Inner Sphere's military tech, at least, is going to be a good bit farther along than it was in canon. (Farther along like, oh, seventeen years or so farther? ^_^)

And, third, our clans won't be doing a contest or a race to Terra - their orders are to unite the Inner Sphere and arrange for it to support Jurai against the Accultanni, -as quickly as possible-. I figure that that would mean that, one, the kid gloves are off, and two, that they won't send just five clans - they'll start their bid with -everything-, all eighteen.

Blessed be.
-n

> First, if the clans are Juraiian clients and/or
> subjects (which their position w/regards to Funaho
> would make them, I think) then they've had access to
> tech equivalent to the other subject worlds -at
> least-.

There might have been some restrictions, even if they weren't standard, just because this is 25% of the force that snatched a good portion of the Empire a couple of centuries back. And the Clans being, well, the clans there would be a heavy focus on military applications.

> Including the genotech. Which is the absolute best
> to be found in a galaxy where 'most everyone can
> beat what the canon Clans had.

The Clans IIRC have virtually no genotech not available more or less now in RL. It's a matter of test-tube babies and cloning mostly afterall. But yeah, they'd probably have something closer to a Zentreadi set up now.

Manticore-Haven sponsorship: yeah, I can see that. Making, of course, the Inner Sphere even more useful to Jurai.

Invasion corridors: I suspect that there would be more of a crusade aspect to the invasion, no matter what Funaho says although it would be more a matter of competing for number of worlds and major targets than racing towards Terra.

Major Targets would seem to be: Alarion (FC), Atreus (FWL), Dieron (DC), Galax (FC), Ionus (FWL), Kathil (FC), Luthien (DC), New Avalon (FC), New Syrtis (FC), Rasalhague (FRR), Sian (CC), Tharkad (FC), Togura (DC)
i.e. the captial worlds and major shipyards of the Inner Sphere

On this basis the corridors could be:

Wolf: FRR/FC(S) inc Rasalhague
Snow Raven: FRR/DC
Smoke Jaguar: DC inc Luthien
Ice Hellion: DC inc Dieron
Blood Spirit: DC inc Togura
Fire Mandrill: FC(D)
Star Adder: FC(D) inc New Avalon & Galax
Steel Viper: FC(D) inc New Syrtis & Kathil
Burrock: CC/SIC/FC(D)
Coyote: CC
Nova Cat: CC/FWL inc Sian
Goliath Scorpion: FWL
Ghost Bear: FWL inc Atreus & Ionus
Cloud Cobra: FWL
Diamond Shark: FC(S) inc Alarion
Jade Falcon: FC(S) inc Tharkad
Hells Horses: FC(S)

The corridors run clockwise around the Inner Sphere. I moved some of the original invading clans into new corridors on the basis that since there are more corridors they would get the more desirable corridors i.e. those with most targets.

Logistics for the clans staging from opposite Jurai's borders would be tricky but if the Guild were 'assisting' then feasible. And that involves the Guild in the conflict per the position of Comstar - 'supporting' the clans with the goal of supplanting them later.

drakensis

"I believe that forgiving the enemy is God's function. Ours is simply to arrange the meeting." - General H Norman Schwarzkopf